That would be great!! Likewise if I see anything I will post it here as well!!!
I found this about general information for trust fund/ retirement accounts.AFL-CIO
AFL-CIO Investment Product Review—Private Capital
As the report makes clear, private capital offers considerable potential to generate
collateral benefits to many constituencies, including workers, their unions, their employers
and their communities. Similarly, a private capital investment that creates high-wage jobs
benefits workers, communities and the entire economy by enlarging the tax base. When
worker capital makes high-road investments, workers are not the only beneficiaries.
The products in this report provide trustees with a range of worker-friendly investment
philosophies and styles, including buyout funds, venture funds and special situations funds.
We encourage trustees and their investment consultants to consider collateral benefits in
general, and the funds in this report in particular, as part of their private capital search
process.
The AFL-CIO intends the IPR process to be part of an ongoing dialogue with investment
managers. T
ogether we can do better in creating jobs, promoting worker partnerships and
supporting corporate transactions that benefit investors, workers and their communities. 
Finally, we would like to thank all of the participants in the IPR process. Understanding
the impacts of pension investments is not simple or straightforward for workers’
representatives or investment managers. We are confident that the time and energy
dedicated to this process will strengthen investment vehicles that create jobs, encourage
corporate citizenship and advance the interests of working people and their communities.
MORE ON VC CAPITAL AND PRODUCING JOBS!!!!.. GO AFL-CIO.. SHOW WALL STREET WHO HAS THE BALLS TO GROW..
The investment product review (IPR) working group is pleased to submit its second report
to the AFL-CIO Capital Stewardship Committee. This report, which focuses exclusively
on the rapidly expanding universe of worker-friendly private capital products,
demonstrates that significant progress has been achieved toward the IPR program goals
since publication of the first IPR report in 1999.
The AFL-CIO Capital Stewardship Committee launched the IPR program in August 1998
to assess the increasing range of investment products that market themselves as providing
collateral benefits to workers. To implement the program, the committee established a
working group to develop an evaluation methodology that could be used by trustees and
other fiduciaries to justify the claims of worker-friendly products (see Appendix 1 for
current working group members).
The working group developed a uniform system of criteria and ratings and applied this
system to evaluate worker-friendly investment products in four asset classes: real estate
and mortgages, public equity, private capital and international equity. The working group
published its initial findings in the IPR report in October 1999.
A second and equally important goal of the IPR program has been to promote the creation
of new investment vehicles that provide collateral benefits to workers. This report confirms
that significant progress has been made toward this goal in the area of private capital.
“Private capital” refers to investments in the privately offered securities of a company. The
term covers a range of investments in companies at various stages of their development
and includes equity as well as debt. Unlike public equity, private capital investments do
not trade on a public exchange and are therefore illiquid. Although the terms “private
capital” and “private equity” are used interchangeably, this report generally uses private
capital to emphasize that the asset class encompasses both debt and equity investments.
The 1999 IPR included three funded private capital funds with aggregate capital
commitments of about $550 million, and five additional funds in various stages of
development. This report, issued only three years later, includes eight funded worker-
friendly private capital funds with aggregate capital commitments of more than $1.8
billion, and one additional fund in the fund-raising stage.
The expanding supply of private capital products targeted toward worker pension funds is,
in part, a response to growing demand for these products among fund trustees. A second
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AFL-CIO Investment Product Review—Private Capital
factor, however, is supply driven. Confronted with the softest fund-raising environment in
recent years, established private capital managers are turning their attention to worker
pension funds, which they see as an untapped source of capital for their investment
products. These managers, some of whom have little experience working with the labor
movement, are marketing their new funds as worker friendly. These trends highlight the
importance of the IPR program.
Some worker pension funds have historically been reluctant to invest in private capital for
a variety of reasons. More and more fund trustees are overcoming this reluctance, however,
as they recognize both the superior returns and diversification benefits offered by private
capital, and its unique potential—when managed by experienced, worker-friendly
managers—to generate significant collateral benefits for fund beneficiaries.
Union-sponsored pension funds are still only modest investors in private capital. Pensions
& Investments (Crain Communications, available online at
www.pionline.com/pension)reports that union-sponsored pension funds as a group allocated about 0.6 percent of their
assets to private equity in 2001, compared with 4.3 percent and 3.9 percent, respectively,
for corporate and public pension funds. But recent trends suggest that this gap is starting to
close.
Working group members report that a number of their unions’ larger affiliated pension
funds have recently made substantial allocations to private capital, typically equal to 5
percent of their active asset allocations. For the most part, however, these recent
allocations do not appear in industry data since only fraction has been invested to date.
Working group members also report that, in part as a result of the IPR program, more and
more trustees are explicitly instructing their investment managers to consider worker-
friendly collateral benefits among their evaluation criteria for private capital investment
products.
The AFL-CIO IPR program and this report did not evaluate any investment vehicle’s
financial performance, potential impact on benefit fund portfolios, general legal
compliance or other financial or nonfinancial criteria that are an essential part of the
investment due diligence process. Nothing in this report should be construed as judgment,
positive or negative, on the investment performance of the products under review, or on
their suitability or lack thereof for any particular benefit fund.
Worker-Friendly Private Capital
The opportunity to generate collateral benefits to workers and their communities is due to
both the nature of private capital as an important source of funds for expanding and
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AFL-CIO Investment Product Review—Private Capital
restructuring private companies and the active ownership role played by private capital
investors.
Private capital investors take significant ownership interests and participate actively in
adding value to their portfolio companies. They often exercise control by holding one or
more seats on the companies’ boards of directors, and this enables them to play an active
role monitoring and advising senior management on corporate policies and strategic
direction. Private capital investors are also able to use their board seats to replace poor
performing management when the need arises.
Private capital is generally divided into three broad categories associated with a company’s
stage of development. The three categories are venture capital, buyout funds and special
situations. Funds specializing in all three types are represented in this report.
1. Venture Capital—The term “venture capital” refers to investing in companies
whose products and revenues are still developing. The seed, early and later stages
of venture capital generally involve companies that are either developing unproven
technologies and/or targeting unproven markets, often in the high technology,
communications or biotechnology industries.
2. Buyout Funds—As the name implies, these funds purchase a large and often
controlling stake of an established company. Many of today’s buyout firms
specialize in helping more mature companies expand through profitable investment
and reorganization. This is in stark contrast to the anti-worker, leveraged buyouts
(LBOs) that characterized the 1980s, in which an investor would primarily debt-
finance the acquisition of a company and then sell off its parts and slash jobs in
order to reduce the burdensome debt load.
3. Special Situations—The term “special situations” most often refers to investments
in financially distressed companies. These investments often take the form of
subordinated, or equity-linked, debt as well as straight equity. Like other private
capital investors, special situations investors vary in their investment philosophies
and management strategies. While some focus mainly on financial restructurings,
others seek to restructure the underlying business in order to stabilize employment
and build long-term value.
The three fund types described above offer differing collateral benefit opportunities.
Venture capital funds, for example, typically generate fewer immediate jobs than a large
buyout fund, notwithstanding the essential role that venture capital plays in seeding the
economic development process. Special situations funds may not create many new jobs,
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AFL-CIO Investment Product Review—Private Capital
but can provide valuable collateral benefits to both workers and their communities by
stabilizing employment at businesses that provide good jobs and that might otherwise
downsize or shut down.
A fund’s ability to generate collateral benefits is largely determined by its investment
philosophy, strategy and focus. In some cases, a fund’s commitment to creating worker-
friendly collateral benefits forms an integral part of its investment philosophy, and this is
reflected in the fund’s policies and approach to portfolio companies. Some funds, for
example, have an investment philosophy that explicitly values collective bargaining and
workers’ right to organize, and the principals at these funds seek to create an environment
at portfolio companies conducive to these values, generally by negotiating card check and
neutrality agreements as a condition of investment.
The IPR working group observed that these funds—which tend to be managed by
principals with significant experience working with the labor movement—fall toward the
more worker-friendly end of a continuum. At the other end of this continuum are those
funds that view the objective of worker-friendly investing as essentially protecting worker
pension fund investors from embarrassing situations, such as major downsizing or labor
disputes at portfolio companies.
Additional information on private capital investing by union pension funds is available in
the soon to be published Center for Working Capital Trustee Guide and Chart Book
(Center for Working Capital, Washington, D.C.).
IT TAKES MORE THEN QE1 OR WHAT JAPAN DID TO INCREASE MONEY BASE.. IT TAKES SAVINGS.. LOOKS LIKE THE AFL-CIA IS DOING A BETTER JOB THEN MANY FANCY WALL STREET FIRMS IN MAKING JOBS!!!
Just a thought,
Bruce
Attachments:
We need saving to make America grow jobs...They tell me every $$$ saved is one less for the GDP.. But if we get banks lending again it is $9.30 dollars building things like next generation plants.. think of the leverage.. O'No that is what got us into the housing mess to start with.. That and low paying jobs. 
Bruce
